


too close to stars

by damerons (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert, Sugar Daddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/damerons
Summary: The arrangement between you two had been working, and it had been workingwell.You’d been seeing him for nearly a year, and by this point, you knew each other.Santi is your sugar daddy, and you accidentally let on that you've fallen for him when you invite him to your kid's soccer game.
Relationships: Santiago "Pope" Garcia/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	too close to stars

**Author's Note:**

> I said in my discord server that Oscar in [this photo](https://64.media.tumblr.com/03cad92b0c21784b6e1afdabc9a05088/tumblr_pk24ewWEqT1utam1x_1280.jpg) looks like a sugar daddy, and then next thing I knew, this was happening. Please enjoy.

You shouldn’t have said anything.

The arrangement between you two had been working, and it had been working _well_. You’d been seeing him for nearly a year, and by this point, you knew each other. He knew what to keep stocked in his fridge for you. You knew based on the tone of his texts whether he wanted to see you for sex, or just for some company. He knew when you wanted to go slow, or hard and rough, without fail and without question.

You knew that he didn’t do kids. You fucking _knew_. Frankly, it was one of the reasons this whole arrangement worked so well. You weren’t looking for a new father for the kids, and they weren’t particularly itching for one, not after the way their dad bailed. For Santi, that was perfect. An excuse for you both to hold each other at arm’s length.

But here’s the thing.

Somewhere around the seven-month mark – and this is something you only realized in retrospect, only realized once you _abysmally_ fucked up – you stopped holding him at arm’s length. Or at least, you stopped working at it quite so hard.

Around month nine, it could reliably be said that you had caught feelings.

And nearly a year in – eleven months and twenty-four days, to be exact – you were curled into his arms in bed, dozing before you had to head home. Santi said something about box seat tickets to a baseball game, wanted you to join him. That upcoming Saturday at 1:30pm.

“Can’t,” you murmured sleepily. “Jamie’s got a soccer game.”

Santi chuckled in your ear. “Kid’s got a million soccer games. You could skip this one.”

“Nuh-uh.” You squeezed your eyes tight and inhaled deep before letting out a sigh. Your arm curled tighter around his chest as you continued. “Snack parent. Gotta go to the game. You’ll just have to come if you wanna see me Saturday.”

Things had… gotten tense quickly, after that.

You told him it had been a joke, obviously. You told him so many times that you started to believe it. But the problem was that he knew you. He knew how you got when you were sleepy, the way you would press your cheek to his chest and he would cradle your head in one hand, hold you close with the other, and you would tell him all about your hopes and dreams. Once, it had triggered your biggest argument—your only real argument. When you admitted that you longed to find a job that paid well enough that you didn’t have to “do this” anymore.

He knew you well enough to know that that was not a joke, and to know that your invitation to Jamie’s soccer game was not a joke.

And you were your own level of embarrassed, because it took you by surprise just as much as it did him.

You shouldn’t have _fucking_ said anything.

It embarrassed you so much that you were still running over the moment while standing on the sidelines of the soccer game in question, cheering on Jamie’s team quite half-heartedly.

Santi hadn’t ended things, exactly. But you’d seen how scared he looked.

And you knew how well and truly fucked you were because you weren’t even concerned about how you’d make up for the loss of income, not really. The fact of the matter was that you just… knew that you would miss him.

The most frustrating thing – in your whole muddle of frustrating things – was that sometimes… well. Sometimes you felt almost convinced that somewhere along the line, Santi might have caught feelings for you too, a little bit. Maybe he had let his guard down with you, in the same way that you had with him.

When he smoothed your hair back. When you told him you’d had a long day at work and he pulled your feet into his lap without warning so that he could give you a foot massage to ease the strain that you’d put on them. When he traced his thumb over your bare stomach after sex, blinked at you in the dark and you could’ve sworn he was about to say—

Presumably, you’d been kidding yourself.

Half-time came, and you fulfilled your duty as snack parent, doling out the traditional orange slices and juice boxes.

If only you could just fucking go home, now that that was done. Go home and bury your face in a pillow and scream because you were stupid enough to fall for a really wonderful guy who just… didn’t do kids.

You were actually on the brink of asking whether one of the other parents could distribute the post-game snacks and bring Jamie home, until you glanced across the field toward the parking lot.

It was an unmistakable sight: Santi’s Jeep, right there, overlooking the youth soccer mayhem.

As you stared, you felt your mouth go dry. After a long, _long_ moment of blinking at the car, you finally managed to move. It was almost as though you were possessed as you slowly strode around the soccer field.

You were a few dozen feet away when the driver’s side door opened, and Santi stepped out. The sight of him left you temporarily breathless—he was dressed simple, casual, but he always managed to look pristine in anything. The most beautiful person in the room (or on the soccer field).

He eased the door shut, stepped around to lean against the hood of the car, and even with his sunglasses on, you _knew_ the way he was staring. You’d spent enough time with that penetrating gaze to know that he was having a similar reaction to you.

Santi’s seen you in extravagant evening gowns, in your favorite cocktail dress, in _his_ favorite lingerie… and his reaction, in each of those moments, paled in comparison to the way he was looking at you right now.

At your kid’s soccer game.

“Got bored with baseball and decided to come see some real athletes?” you asked as you drew near enough to speak to him without shouting.

“Something like that,” Santi agreed.

“How did you find me?” You found it a little too difficult to ask the question that was really nagging at you, that you knew he _knew_ must really be on your mind.

With a tentative smile, he held his phone up. “You shared your calendar with me when we went to Cabo.”

Oh.

It was not that you had forgotten, but you were under the impression that Santi never bothered to _look_ at it. You’d posited that it would make it easier for him to plan when he could see you if your availability was at his fingertips (this was after the seven-month mark, so realistically, you weren’t just thinking of practicality when you opened your life up to him like that), but sometimes he asked to make plans that coincided with other commitments.

Maybe you wouldn’t have pointed that out on a normal day, but hell, he’d shown up here without warning, so it felt like you were well within your rights to call him out. “I didn’t know you bothered to look at it.”

“I look at it sometimes,” he said softly. “I only ask you to change your plans if it’s something I thought you might want to bail on anyway.”

Looking back, you frequently _did_ agree to see Santi instead.

Why the fuck did he have to _know_ you like this?

You didn’t know quite how to answer that, but it seemed like Santi wasn’t really expecting a reply. When you stopped a few feet in front of him, he took off his sunglasses and tucked them over the neck of his shirt.

He once told you that he liked seeing you on grey days because he was able to see you better without sunglasses. Fucking charmer.

“I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me since you left,” he said after a beat. “I’ve had a lot of thinking to do.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” you rushed to reassure him. Because an apology felt too close to, _I let this get too serious_ , and you didn’t like the idea that that was what he was going to say next. “I shouldn’t have invited you, it was silly.”

Santi smiled slightly, which was… not what you were expecting. “No, babe, that’s… Shit, I had a whole thing in my head as I was driving over here. Um.” For a few seconds, he worried at his lower lip, a habit which you rarely saw. He wasn’t frequently anxious, and he was usually better at keeping it contained. “I think I gave you the wrong impression about why I asked you to leave.”

Warily, you crossed your arms over your chest. “Okay.”

“Our arrangement felt so perfect when I found you. You’re beautiful and charming and so fucking funny, you do great at my work parties, and obviously the sex—” At that precise moment you received a reminder that this entire conversation was happening at a park full of children and families, because a screaming pair of kids raced past. Not close enough that they could hear your conversation, but close enough that it made Santi reign it in, both of you managing to smile a bit. Good-naturedly. “Everything’s been really good. And then last month you told me that you didn’t want to need to do this to support your family, and I…” He groaned and leaned his head back in exasperation. “God, I hate this.”

You felt your hands shaking a bit, so you curled your fingers into fists, as though that would somehow contain the mess of feelings coursing through you. “Santi.”

“It scared the shit out of me, babe. I think it’s been months since I let myself think about my time with you as something that was going to end.”

“Oh,” you breathed.

“And I figured that it was fine, that this would go on as long as you wanted and then we’d go our separate ways, but I hadn’t really let myself consider the possibility that you… that maybe our arrangement wasn’t working for you anymore, either.”

He stopped talking then. Frankly, he seemed scared to say anything more, and your heart went out to him now that you understood what idiots you’d both been. Treading water and unintentionally making each other hurt, just because you each thought it was what the other wanted.

You took Santi in—fidgeting with his phone in his hands, turning it over and over. He was watching you so cautiously. He’d shown you the world, he’d pampered you to within an inch of your life, but this moment – him showing up at a damn children’s soccer game – was the most earnest gesture he could have made to show you how serious he was.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you said softly, and the tension seemed to leave his body all at once. “This… this might take a little while to figure out, but I’m glad you’re here.”


End file.
